Wednesday preview: Next, Flutter and Diageo in focus
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Tuesday 05 May 2026
(Sharecast News) - Wednesday sees the release of first-quarter earnings from sports betting and gambling firm Flutter Entertainment, a third-quarter trading update from drinks company Diageo and a Q1 trading update from clothing and homeware retailer Next.
Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said that as one of the best run and most respected stocks within the FTSE 100, "Next finds itself needing to walk the continuous tightrope of becoming a victim of its own success, with expectations for its results being so high".
"For example, at the full-year numbers in March, the group announced pre-tax profit which grew by 14.5% to £1.16 billion," he said. "The latter contained £8 million of additional profit from upgraded guidance in January (which itself was the fifth upgrade in a year), due to better than expected full-price sales and end of season clearance rates.
"The outlook for the current year continues to build on the group's success hitherto, with full price sales expected to rise by 4.5% to £5.9 billion, pre-tax profit by the same percentage to £1.21 billion, with a further £500 million earmarked for shareholder returns. In the meantime, the current yield of 2% is boosted to 4.7% including a special (if temporary) dividend."
Hunter noted that the shares have taken a rare breather of late, having declined by 6% so far this year following wider market weakness as the inflationary impact of higher energy prices threatens to heighten input costs as well as crimp consumer demand.
"However, this has done little to derail the group's progress overall, which has seen an 8% increase in the share price over the last year, and of 91% over the last three years - a considerable achievement given the traditional restraints which retail stocks face," he said.
First-quarter results from Novo Nordisk will also be in focus, along with a third-quarter trading update from Renishaw, a Q1 trading report from Smith & Nephew and full-year results from Trainline.
As far as Trainline is concerned, UBS said the company has already reported net ticket sales of £6.3bn and revenues of £453m in an earlier trading update and as such EBITDA will be the most closely watched metric for FY26 with both consensus and UBS forecasting £177m.
"Revenue growth in FY27 is set to be impacted by a freeze in regulated fares in the UK, few sources of increased carrier competition in Europe, and headwinds from increased contactless ticketing in the UK," the bank said. "FY27 guidance will therefore be closely watched as a measure of the group's ability to increase revenues (from market share gains and increasing ancillary sales), as well as the group's ability to sustain margins."
Consensus forecasts are for net ticket sales of £6.55bn, revenues of £463m and EBITDA of £179m.
In the US, Q2 earnings from Walt Disney and Q1 earnings from Uber Technologies and Kraft Heinz will be released.
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